


...But Mostly Blood

by MindfulWrath



Series: The Rise and Fall [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blood Drinking, Blood Magic, Bloodplay, Cannibalism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3602487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood, and Chaos, and a world that has suddenly turned to a desert around them. Parvis and Strife set out to escape the desert, and soon find out how far they will go in order to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...But Mostly Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Momphos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momphos/gifts).



"Uh, Strife?"

"Whaddaya want, Parvis? I'm in the middle of something."

"I think you'd better come see this."

"Come see what?"

"Just—come outside and look at this."

Strife grumbled, but Parvis could hear him tromping up the stone stairs behind him. Soon he was on the parapet of the stolen castle, looking out at the world beyond.

"Parvis?" Strife inquired. "What did you _do?"_

"Nothing!" he cried. "It was just like that when I came out here!"

"You mean to tell me, the whole world is _suddenly_ a desert, and you didn't have anything to do with it."

"Yes."

"Bull. You and your potty-mouth wizardry did this. Somehow."

"I didn't, Strife! Trees don't have blood, and neither does grass, or dirt! I don't have any use for plants, or anything!"

"This is some kind of consequence for something you've done," Strife asserted.

"No. No! Maybe _you_ did it, with all your sciencey stuff."

"Science doesn't do this. Only potty-mouth wizardry does stuff like this."

"You don't know that!"

"I _do_ know that, because science is _predictable,_ unlike your weird, creepy blood-magic!"

"It's your weird, creepy blood-magic, too. And it's not weird and creepy!" Parvis threw his hands over his mouth with a gasp as a terrible thought occurred to him. "Oh God, Martyn!"

"Oh, _Martyn,_ of course. Your potty-mouth wizard cohort."

"But all his trees'll be dead! Strifey, we've got to go save him!"

"I don't have to do _anything,"_ Strife corrected. "In fact, I'm gonna stay right here and _not_ wander off into the endless desert and die."

"But _Striiiiife!"_ Parvis whined. "He'll die!"

"Good. One less potty-mouth wizard in the world."

Parvis pouted at him, his lip trembling, his eyes welling with tears. Strife glanced at him and then studiously averted his eyes.

"I'm not going, and that's the end of that. If you're so worried about Martyn, you can go get him yourself."

"Fine, maybe I will! I don't need you. I can take care of myself." He turned to storm off, then paused. "Er, Strife, how d'you open the main gate again?"

"Oh, for the love of— _fine._ I'll come with you. Just—wait five minutes before you go charging off into certain death."

"Yay! Strifey and me are going on an adventure!"

"This is _not_ an adventure," Strife snapped, pointing a scolding finger at Parvis, "and I am _only_ going so that _when you die,_ I'll know about it, and won't have to go looking for you."

"You'd go looking for me?" Parvis gasped.

"I—shut up."

Parvis grinned like a lunatic and skipped down the stairs, his mind buzzing with thoughts of glory.

* * *

 

On the third day, they ran out of water.

The desert was massive, seemingly endless—or perhaps, with the lack of real landmarks, they were simply walking in vast meandering circles, lost and weary.

"We have to go back," Strife stated. He was wearing his shirt as a makeshift turban, and his skin was red and blistered from the unending sun. Parvis himself was not much better off, although his sunburns were not cracking and peeling nearly as badly as Strife's.

"C'mon, Strife, don't be like that. We'll make it out. Tomorrow, I'm sure."

"You said that yesterday."

"Well, today's not over, is it!"

"We are going to _die,_ Parvis."

"Oh, no we're not," Parvis assured him easily. "Besides, we've _got_ to be closer to the end of the desert than we are to home. There can't possibly be another three days' worth of desert."

"Great, and now you've jinxed it."

"No I haven't! C'mon, Strifey, up you get. We're not going to get anywhere if you sit there all day."

Strife glared at him. "You're awfully chipper for someone who's staring death in the face."

"You're awfully sour for someone who's going to help me rescue Martyn," Parvis retorted. He held out a hand to Strife. "C'mon, up you get!"

With a long-suffering sigh, Strife took the proffered hand and hauled himself to his feet.

* * *

 

On the sixth day, they ran out of food.

The wild and starving fauna had all vanished, eventually; Parvis couldn't imagine where they'd gone, but so far he hadn't seen any corpses, which was unfortunately less than encouraging. It meant there was no meat to scavenge, and moreover, no blood to steal. Covertly checking his blood orb as they walked, he was dismayed to see it was more than half-empty. Evidently, healing constant sunburn, blisters, and dehydration was taking its toll on the object.

“Hand it over.”

Parvis turned, squinting against the harsh desert sunlight. Strife was pointing a crossbow at his head, the tip of the bolt drawing unsteady patterns in the air.

“Hand—what?”

“The blood-orb, Parvis,” Strife snarled. “I _know_ you have it and I _know_ it’s keeping you alive while I’m over here _starving to death,_ now hand it _over_ or so help me God, I will _end you!”_

Parvis blinked at him. “I haven’t got a—”

The crossbow fired. The bolt whizzed past Parvis’s ear, grazing the cartilage. Strife reloaded with shaking hands and took aim again.

“How stupid do you think I am?” he demanded, his voice cracking.

“Okay! All right, it’s okay, Strifey, look, I’ve got the orb, okay? It’s right here.” He licked his lips, wondering if Strife had missed on purpose, wondering if his next words would be his last. “But … it’s bound to me. It won’t work for anyone else. You know how it is.”

“I don’t care!” Strife retorted. He braced his wrist in his other hand, and the tip of the crossbow bolt settled to point neatly at Parvis's right eye. “I don’t care. I’m not dying out here, Parvis, and if it comes down to you or me, _it’s damn well gonna be me.”_

“It’s not going to get that far,” Parvis promised. “We’ll make it out. We’ll be fine. Just hang in there, all right?”

Strife’s eyes narrowed behind the dark lenses of his glasses.

“Give me your arm,” he ordered gruffly.

“What?”

“Give me your _arm,_ Parvis. If I can’t have the orb, I’ll go straight to the source.”

"Um, that's not—I don't think that'll work," he pointed out.

"I haven't had a fucking drink in three goddamn days," Strife growled. "And if you don't give it willingly, I will _take_ it from you."

"Strifey, look, I don't want this to come down to fighting. I don't want to hurt you."

"Then shut up and give me your fucking arm!"

Parvis bit his lip. Strife really _did_ look supremely unwell. His lips were so chapped that they had cracked open in places. His face was gaunt and greyish. He was breathing far too hard for someone who'd only been walking.

"All right," Parvis said softly. "I'm . . . I'm going to walk over to you now. Please don't shoot me?"

Strife grunted and lowered the crossbow. It fired into the sand, and the bolt vanished. Parvis jumped, but Strife scarcely reacted at all. He was fumbling for his skinning knife, tucked into his belt by his hip.

"So," Parvis hedged, "how're we—?"

Strife's hand shot out like lightning and caught him by the wrist. Before Parvis had fully processed even that action, Strife had sliced a deep gouge into his wrist, an ugly, ragged cut that started bleeding immediately. Parvis yelled out—it wasn't the same buzzing high as the sacrificial dagger gave him, not even close—and Strife dropped the knife, the better to clutch Parvis's arm with both hands. He fastened his mouth over the wound and started sucking, and his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to his knees, fingernails digging into Parvis's skin.

And that, oh dear God, _that_ was a better high than magic had _ever_ given him.

Carefully, as though petting a feral cat, Parvis put his free hand on the back of Strife's head. Strife made a small noise in the back of his throat, still drinking down Parvis's blood like it was the elixir of life.

"Poor thing," Parvis murmured, stroking the other's hair. "My poor, dear thing."

With a wet _pop,_ Strife disengaged his mouth from Parvis's arm just long enough to snarl, "I'm not _your thing,"_ through bloodstained lips, before returning to the wound with renewed vigor. Parvis had to suppress a shudder as Strife's tongue traced the thin trickle of blood that had slid down his arm.

"There you are," he encouraged, playing with the hair at the back of Strife's neck. "Drink up, Strifey. You haven't been yourself." The blood orb was getting cold by his side—doubtless from replenishing the blood Strife was drinking—but he couldn't have cared less. It was only when he felt the wound begin to close that he felt a twinge of disappointment.

This was drowned out entirely when Strife whimpered and began laving the closing cut with his tongue, at which point Parvis's knees nearly gave out. He was glad Strife had let his hair grow out somewhat; it gave him something to grab onto.

Even when the wound had finally closed entirely, and the blood orb grew warm again at Parvis's side, Strife kept on him until every last drop of blood had been licked, sucked, and scraped by teeth from his arm. Then he simply rested his head against the fresh-formed scar on Parvis's forearm and closed his eyes while his elevated breathing settled.

Parvis petted his hair. "Was it good, Strifey?" he inquired.

"I hate you," Strife declared, his voice hoarse.

Parvis grinned. "Glad to see you're feeling back to normal. Up you get, Strifey! I'm sure we'll get out of this desert in no time."

* * *

 

It was two days before Strife demanded another drink. Parvis allowed it without resistance. The blood orb was emptying rapidly with the strain of keeping two people alive without replenishment, but Parvis was generally unconcerned. They _had_ to be at the edge of the desert by now. One more day of walking and they'd be through it.

Three days after that, Parvis made him beg.

"I haven't got infinite blood, you know," he scolded, his arms crossed. "You could at least be grateful."

"I'm _not_ kneeling," Strife asserted.

Parvis smiled at him. "You will," he said. "C'mon, Strifey. After all I've done for you, and all I'm asking is this one little thing."

"I will _not_ beg you."

"Then no blood for you. So there." And he stuck his tongue out.

Strife ground his teeth, growled, and slowly got on his knees. "Happy?" he demanded.

"That doesn't sound like begging," Parvis pointed out, arching an eyebrow.

"Parvis," Strife warned. He was fingering his skinning knife.

"I'm not budging on this. I want something in return for keeping you alive all this time."

"I wouldn't be _out_ here if it weren't for you!"

"I didn't _ask_ you to come. You came all on your own because you thought I would die. Well look who's going to die now, Strife. Unless he begs. Hint: it's you."

Strife's nostrils flared and his jaw clenched, but eventually he ground out, "Parvis? Please."

"I'm not sure that counts as begging."

"I'll _kill_ you."

"That _definitely_ doesn't count."

His hand was clenched on the handle of the skinning knife, white-knuckled. He was trembling.

"Please, Parvis. I . . . need. This."

"Tell me you need _me,"_ Parvis instructed, his blood burning with the energy of snatched power. Strife was _on his knees._ Begging. Begging for _Parvis,_ and God, it was good. "Tell me you _want_ me."

"Go to hell, Parvis, you sick fuck," Strife snarled, his eyes flashing.

 _"Say it,"_ Parvis hissed. He needed to hear Strife say those words like he needed air in his lungs—and Strife on his knees, suckling from a fresh wound, and those absolutely _desperate_ noises he would make. . . .

With a roar, Strife threw himself at Parvis, knife first. Parvis dodged, or tried to—his mind had been too far off for fast reflexes. There was a sharp pain in his neck, and his back slammed against the sand. Strife landed on top of him, and Parvis watched as the unadulterated rage on his face dissolved down into horror. Hot liquid was spilling down Parvis's neck, pouring out past the blade of the knife.

"No," Strife breathed.

"S-Strife?" Parvis stammered.

Strife ripped the knife out of his neck and fixed his mouth over the wound, swallowing Parvis's blood as quickly as it poured out of him. The world was starting to go dark, and he was cold, and his body seemed so _distant,_ which was a pity because—apart from the terrible pain in his neck—he felt incredible, with Strife on top of him, sucking so desperately at the tender flesh of his throat.

"God, yes," Parvis murmured, his eyes drifting closed. He rested his hand on Strife's back, though he could scarcely move. He must have bled a _lot. . . ._

Just before the world went dark, Strife's teeth sank into his neck, tearing at his flesh.

And he was glad, in those last moments, that the last thing he would ever feel was Strife.

 


End file.
